Challenging the Paradigm
by danang1970
Summary: The A-Team doesn't care about what their friendship looks like from the outside.
1. Chapter 1

AUTHOR: Danang1970

RATING: M (language)

SUMMARY: From a prompt on the A-Team Kink Meme. Write a fic wherein the boys have "buckets of platonic love" for each other.

CHARACTERS: Face, Murdock, Hannibal, Sosa, BA

WARNINGS: Language

DISCLAIMER: Not my characters.

PART ONE:

It's understandable that people misinterpret it sometimes.

The way Murdock hangs off BA while he's working, accepted by the bigger man with barely a token eye-roll and a few gruff comments that everyone knows will never amount to any serious threat. The way Face and Hannibal have an intimacy that goes beyond the boundaries of Colonel and subordinate, whether they're breathing the same air while hunched over a map or having beers by Murdock's barbecue, leaning into each other's spaces and laughing at in-jokes whose origins were forgotten years ago.

The way BA pulls at the waistband of Face's shorts to prove that Face's torso is burnt from too much tanning, and how Face's automatic retaliation instinct is to chase BA all over camp trying to whip him with a towel. Hannibal borrowing Murdock's cap when it's too sunny out, and Murdock using Face's arm to scribble his strategy for the next mission's air support because he can't be bothered looking for paper.

All of these things, taken separately and especially together, make people outside of the elite team of Rangers say, "...Huh. They sure are... CLOSE, aren't they?", in a tone heavy with implication. No one considers speculation outright since the gossip isn't worth the threat of a reprimand from superiors, but everyone knows what everyone else is thinking.

For a while, the next line around the proverbial water cooler would be about Face's relationship with Charisa and the conversation would sidestep and devolve from there. But now, it's just four single men who seem really, really comfortable in each other's company.

Clearly, they must be having buttsex.


	2. Chapter 2

If the nearly-rumours and covert speculation bother the men, they don't show it. It certainly doesn't affect the way they act around each other, or cause them to dial it back a notch on scenes like this:

"Oh my god. OH MY GOD." Face's outraged cry exploded from the tent he shared with the other members of his team. Several miles away, a startled camel raised its head. Maybe because it heard Face, maybe just because camels are easily startled by sand (though, for their sake, one would hope not). Camel-alarming or not, Face's shout was loud.

On a fold-out chair several metres from the tent, Hannibal continued reading his newspaper without pause. If it was something important, his boys would let him know. He hoped it wasn't. Maybe they could sort it out for themselves. Maybe he could go one full week without having to act like a mediator in a kindergar-

"HANNIBAL!"

The Colonel's lips tightened reflexively on his cigar. He looked towards the tent but didn't respond. BA, sprawled on a chair to his left and rubbing engine grease off his hands, sighed in a long-suffering manner that Hannibal REALLY didn't think he was entitled to. BA wasn't the one whose name was always shrieked in these situations, after all.

Face burst from the tent with wide eyes, a toothbrush thrust in front of him as he charged towards Hannibal. Murdock scrabbled after him, both of their mouths opening to speak.

Face got there first. "Hannibal, oh my god. He... Murdock put his BALLS on my toothbrush!"

Oh good. This was off to a reasonable start.

"You got fake tan all over my favourite shirt!" was Murdock's completely reasonable reply.

"It wasn't fake tan, it was tanning OIL," said Face, who couldn't seem to settle on a facial expression between "outraged", "horrified", "revolted" and "amused". His eyes were almost dancing but he seemed determined to keep the corners of his mouth firmly down. "It wasn't even your favourite shirt! I've never seen you wear it!"

"Things don't stop existing just because you don't notice them," Murdock practically shouted. "Does that mean that you can spill fake tan all over everyone you've never met, because you've never seen them so it doesn't matter?"

Face spluttered, which Hannibal would have to count as a point for the pilot. His lieutenant didn't seem to know how to counter that, so he went back to his main issue of contention. "BALLS," he enunciated. "On my TOOTHBRUSH."

"A toothbrush is way easier to replace than a new shirt. If anything, toothbrush balls is letting you off lightly."

"There is no flowchart for when you can and can't put my things down your pants!"

Sensing that Murdock would not hesitate to make such a chart (or produce a pre-made one, who knew), Hannibal tried to step in. "Boys."

Two heads snapped towards him. The toothbrush flailed alarmingly close to his cigar.

Hannibal took a slight step back and began again. "Captain. In the future, please don't put Face's things in your pants." As Face opened his mouth, Hannibal smoothly continued. "Or put the contents of your pants on Face's things, or put your pants on Face's things, or generally show disrespect for his belongings with your pants area. Is that understood?"

Hannibal received a sharp nod, salute and, "Yes sir."

"Lieutenant. If you have to use suntan oil," Murdock's mouth started to open, "OR fake tan, or sunscreen, or body lotion, or anything other than deodorant, please apply it in the showers or somewhere else outside the tent. Is that clear?"

Face sighed. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Is there anything else?"

Two voices chorused back. "No, sir."

Hannibal sat back down and went back to his paper. Not being completely stupid, he kept half an ear out for any further bickering. Bickering. Boys will be boys, but he was not a damn babysitter...

There was a shuffling, and a sound that would have been a giggle if it hadn't come from an Army Ranger in his late twenties.

"Hannibal!" Murdock this time, his voice quivering with laughter as he danced away from Face. "Hannibal, he's touching me with his toothbrush!"


	3. Chapter 3

When Face and Sosa were together, she had tolerated his unorthodox friendships with the rest of his team for the most part. She thought herself incredibly accepting and generous as a girlfriend to express minimal dissatisfaction over the amount of time his friends demanded. When Face was late picking her up from the airport because his crazy friend had had one of his "turns", Sosa didn't cancel their planned weekend together. When he wanted them to hang with his team drinking beer instead of going to an actual restaurant, she'd made polite conversation for nearly an hour before hinting that they should probably leave and find some real food.

She was a GOOD girlfriend, dammit! So accepting. Was it wrong to want a little attention from her man? No! That team of his wanted everything – he WORKED with them, they shouldn't need all his free time too. They kept demanding things from Face, so Sosa just had to demand harder. She didn't feel bad about it. Face was always turned on by her dominant, possessive side. He loved it.

Just not, apparently, as much as he loved his precious team.

When Face took a phonecall during their first dinner together in months, Sosa didn't say anything. Her lips were pursed and she glared, but she didn't say anything.

Finally, when she started tapping her fork against her water glass, Face seemed to get the hint. "Uh, I have to go, man. Ha, yeah, definitely. Count me in. Haha! Okay, cool, see you later. Love you, bye." He clicked his phone off, then did a double-take at his girlfriend's expression. "What?"

Sosa was fairly certain that her nails were gouging marks in their table, even through the table cloth. "That was your team." She rarely called them by name. Only "your team" or, if referring to a specific individual, by rank. ("Your team will understand if you're late to one meeting," or "Why do you and the Captain always go to the bathroom together like women?")

"Uh, yeah?" Face wasn't sure whether this would incriminate him or not. "Murdock. He says hi...?"

He did not, and she knew it. "Okay."

Face felt like a bad stand-up comic. Why were women so WEIRD? "What's wrong?"

That frosty look. "Nothing."

Fine. Two could play at that game. "Okay then." He sipped at his wine and started to cut into his steak.

He was three bites in before she cracked. "You always end phonecalls like that?"

Face rewound the last few minutes. "Uh... Yeah. What, why?"

Sosa seemed to have a problem with this that he wasn't seeing. "You always end your conversations with your team like that. By saying, 'I love you'."

Ohhh! Okay. At least now, Face had the scent of the problem even if he still couldn't really understand what she was so pissy about. "Well we don't say 'I love you'. That's a bit gay," he chuckled. "Nah, we just say, 'Love you' when we hang up. Like, 'Kay, love you, bye'. It's this running thing we have."

And if Face wasn't born under an evil, malicious star, that would have been the end of it. But: "So you tell your TEAM that you love them. Every day."

"Well, every time we talk on the phone, yeah." His steak was going to go cold.

"Your TEAM," Sosa repeated, as though that was going to make him understand her logic any better. "The MEN that you WORK WITH. Your WORKMATES. You tell your WORKMATES that you love them over the phone."

Face gave a half-smile. "Well, they're not just workmates. I mean, Charisa, come on. We're like..." he struggled to find a way to explain it without sounding saccharine or clichéd. "We're friends," he settled for, somewhat inadequately to his own ears.

"Friends. Right." Sosa's arms were crossed in front of her by this point. "You don't end phonecalls with ME like that. Aren't we friends?"

Face swallowed a bark of laughter. "Well, no, I mean, come on!" Amazing how her gaze could strip away all his defences. Usually, he found that exhilarating. "Charisa! It's not like.. I mean, you and me, it's different! Of course it is. We don't have that."

He'd meant the running phone gag, but they both heard it differently.

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the meal.


	4. Chapter 4

A month and a half after Face ate cold steak with Charisa (sadly not a euphemism), the team threw an Irish wake for his relationship. In the heat of the mid-afternoon Iraqi sun, they remained undisturbed in the area by the barbecue that was unofficially "theirs". (Murdock had suggested actually peeing a circle around it to officially claim it as their own, but that led to a discussion about how the sand would shift and blow away so they'd have to do it every morning, and Face suggested shifts but BA suggested fists and that was the end of that. In the end, people seemed content to leave the team to their own devices without any urinary incentives.)

"I'm better off anyway, right?" Face asked not-so-rhetorically, his inflections made rough by the lion's share of a bottle of Jack Daniels he'd consumed in the past few hours. "I mean, fuck her. FUCK her. You never even liked her, right? Fuck her."

From their flimsy chairs beside him, BA and Hannibal exchanged a glance. Their lips were all loosened by alcohol but Hannibal knew it was dangerous to fall into the tempting trap of Sosa-bashing. Let the kid vent, sure, but be careful. Face had loved her, whatever he might have said then or now, and when he'd sobered up he might not appreciate the memory of his three closest friends trash-talking his relationship. There was no place here for 'I always thought...' or 'I told you so'.

Thus, Hannibal tried to choose his words diplomatically. "It wasn't about liking her, kid. She never really made an effort to get to know us. To let us get to know her. She... seemed to want to be a separate part of your life."

BA took another swig of beer. He was still nursing his first, couldn't really stand the stuff, but when in Rome and your buddy's just had his heart stomped on by a callus bitch... Plus it gave him something to fiddle with while he remained studiously silent. Wasn't none of his business. Just let Face get it out and hopefully get they'd get through this without any crying or other girly shit.

Murdock twisted his upper body to look at Face from his position on the ground, arm wrapped around one of the Lieutenant's bare legs. He pushed back his cowboy hat so he could see – Hannibal having appropriated his 'Rock Out With Your Cock Out' trucker hat in honour of the no-chicks-allowed theme of the day. "She was jealous of us," Murdock said matter-of-factly.

It was true. The night they'd met Sosa, really met her as Face's girlfriend and not just a woman they'd occasionally seen striding with purpose around the base, she had made no secret of her discomfort. She didn't attempt to join in any of their conversations, and seemed to resent it when Face's attention was on anyone but her. The more he laughed at Murdock's jokes, teased BA, shared eye-rolls with Hannibal, the more rigid her posture became. Sosa had eventually dragged him out after less than an hour.

That was when warning bells rang for Hannibal, it he was honest with himself. She didn't respect the kid. He could tell from that. If she really loved Face – hell, if she just LIKED him – she would have respected the most important thing in his life. And that was why Hannibal wasn't often honest with himself about this, because he found himself calling the team, their... the team, whatever it was, the most important part of Face's life. Was he wrong? Did that make him just as bad as Sosa, assuming top position?

No, Hannibal didn't think so. He hoped not. Sosa waltzed in and after a few weeks, expected Face's entire priorities and routine to change. Hannibal hadn't expected. He'd EARNED. Not just in the amount of time he'd known the kid, the missions they pulled off and the close physical quarters they shared. He was there for Face at times like these, the whole team was. Where was she? That was the point.

Hannibal tugged the bottle from Face's hands and took a swig of warm Jack. He was getting too old for middle-of-the-day drinking.

Face, meanwhile, was responding to Murdock's assessment of the situation. He snorted. "Jealous. Yeah. Kind of. Maybe." He went to take another drink from the bottle and became very sad and confused to find his hands empty. Murdock dutifully passed up his own bottle of tequila (complete with bendy straw because apparently "tequila is a sipping drink today").

Murdock twisted more and rested his cheek on Face's thigh. "No, she was definitely jealous." His gaze was very serious. "She knew she could never love you the same way I do."

Tequila dribbled out of Face's mouth as he let out a bark of surprised laughter.

BA groaned. "I ain't sticking around if this is gonna be one of your crazy love-fests," he warned the Captain. "You got too many feelings. Keep 'em inside."

The response of "I'll keep YOU inside," really should have been anticipated from BA. Sloppy, noted Hannibal.

Murdock pulled himself into a strange half-squatting position between Face's knees, still addressing BA. "You shouldn't be afraid of our love," he said, gesturing between himself and a Face, who was trying to lick tequila off his own chin. "It takes a big man to admit his feelings."

The pilot half fell, half manoeuvred onto Face's lap, giggling. Face, used to Murdock's touchy-feeliness, accepted it with all the dignity he was capable of. He snorted and took another pull of tequila through his bendy straw.

"I looooooooooove you, Facey," said Murdock, pointedly eying BA, who refused to be antagonised. "You're my awesome friend. I think you are lots of great. Love love love love love..." He leaned forward and hugged Face as much as he could, peppering kisses over his cheeks and chin theatrically.

Hannibal watched with a warm glow in his heart that was not caused by Jack Daniels. (Well, he would deny it was Jack, just like he would claim that his headache the next day was caused by the heat and his nausea from food poisoning.) Thank god for Murdock. All boundaries were blurred within their group, but there was still something intrinsically awkward about asking a fellow man, Ranger, friend, "Do you need a hug?" Murdock didn't ask. He bounded over and gave.

Face's hands, now free of their cumbersome alcoholic burden, came to rest loosely on Murdock's hips as he laughed. "Oh, baby," he drawled, trying to sound like a lady but ending up somewhere between a chronic chain smoker and a South Park character. "You treat me so good. You can see all of my secrets." He gave a slight upwards thrust of his hips and laughed.

"Oh I'm so happy!" Murdock proclaimed, throwing his arms around Face and hugging him.

"Aww." Face brought his own arms up to hug Murdock back, withdrawing them when he thought the hug was over and awkwardly replacing them when he realised the pilot wasn't moving.

Murdock stayed where he was, feet planted on either side of Face's legs, pulling him forward awkwardly into a tight hug that couldn't possibly be comfortable. "I love you, Facey," he whispered, louder than he would have sober but still soft enough that only Face could hear. Flecks of spit hit Face's cheek but he didn't move his arms to brush them off. "You're such a good person. You deserve the very best of everything. I'm sorry you didn't get it this time."

BA and Hannibal didn't hear what the Captain whispered into Face's ear, but they saw the Lieutenant's eyes squeeze shut, his mouth hardening as he swallowed before tilting his head slightly to hide his face in the crook of Murdock's neck. They saw his hands flex on Murdock's back as Face gripped him tighter, and they saw the nearly-imperceptible shaking that started in his chest and vibrated through the pilot.

"Shhhh," Murdock cooed, using his braced legs to rock Face ever-so gently, not letting go. He pressed a kiss to the sweaty blonde head. "Shhhh."

By unspoken agreement, Hannibal and BA quietly stood and left. Hannibal to give his boys privacy, BA because it had officially gotten way too weird and girly for him and he needed to do something mechanical or blow something up or he was scared he'd start farting rainbows.

Face and Murdock stayed, Murdock straddling Face and muttering softly to him, rubbing soothing hands over his friend's back, for nearly an hour. If anyone in the camp thought anything of it, they could suck hairy monkey dick. This was what Face needed. Murdock and Face understood. That was all that mattered. 

END


End file.
